


Wednesday

by zorotokon



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Assassination, Domestic Violence, Gen, Swirl Cakes, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 11:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10990047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zorotokon/pseuds/zorotokon
Summary: To the city of Zootopia, the savage crisis was the end of the world, the breakdown of all social order, and the death of their trust in political figures. For Doug, it was Tuesday. The conspiracy had cracked like an egg, but while the ZPD was sifting the shell from the yolk, he had slipped away on bail. Of course, Bellwether, Clovis, and Penelope weren’t the only sheep with less than pleasant plans for Zootopia’s pred population, and a professional can always find some angle to profit. His mark this time? Some nobody upstart councilwoman called Canidae. Then he got another call, from a VERY familiar number.





	Wednesday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lovelymayor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lovelymayor/gifts).



> While this piece is stand alone, it is heavily based upon "Red Tape," a work by LovelyMayor. That piece is not required reading, but it is highly suggested to fully understand the references made. Also it's just a damn good story. "Red Tape" can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7584187/chapters/17256436

**Wednesday**

I’m a professional. I keep my snout clean. I pay my debts. I don’t get caught, and I sure as hell don’t squeal if I do. I take my lattes with extra foam, my salads with arugula, and my guns with 16x scopes plus enough stopping power to make a charging elephant regret ever having been born. Sure, my last gig had gone belly up, but the people who mattered had my number. It wasn’t even a week of waiting before the next job came ringing in.

It was the sixth burner phone, which meant the call was from an Old Boy’s Flock out in the hills. Good animals; charitable, kind to lambs, and only occasionally destabilized the government at large. They hadn’t been part of the nighthowler conspiracy, or that whole thing to rig the election, but they must have been paying attention to the news, and taking notes.

“You’ve come extremely highly recommended, and let me say that it is both an honor and a privilege, not just for you, of course, but for us to be working together.”

The voice on the other line was feminine, some kind of highlands ewe I’d wager. I almost had to concentrate to understand what she was saying due to her refusal to pronounce the letter ‘R.’ Almost. I set the phone to speaker and continued breakfast.

“It is with the utmost importance and honor that I, Englehoven van Mouflon, current heir to the Mouflon estates, and assets, have been chosen to contact you on this most fateful of occasions.”

I topped off my coffee.

“For, as you well know, the time of reckoning for the violent and degenerate filth that still clogs our streets has come at last! This is no longer the age of unity and harmony, this is the age where the meek shall rise and destroy those who oppose us!”

“Uh-huh,” I replied.

“No more shall the pig fear the wolf. No more shall the antelope fear the lion! No more shall our lambs and fawns be denied the right to walk proud and sure in the city, free from the toothed menace that…”

The babbling continued like this for another six minutes before she got to the point I had any interest in. Five million dollars for kitnapping a public figure. I could have smiled.

“Kitnapping isn’t my style, but if you’re good for the money…” they should be good for it, but no sense letting them off easy. I’d been to their club house once, though they’d probably ban me just for calling it that instead of a luxury pleasure resort. It was so stereotypically posh that I thought it was a joke at first and kept waiting them to bring me around to the real building, but no. Everything you would guess would be there was, and in spades. From a gold plated “Members Only” door sign, to multiple champagne fountains that never got turned off. The only thing more excessively indulgent than the building was the tennis courts that went on for miles. Literal miles. That part of the tour had taken three hours, and we were in a car.

They had all four stomachs fit to burst with rules too. Only play tennis if you’re dressed entirely in white. Only get in if you’re with another member, even if you are a member. Don’t drink from the fountains, be they chocolate, champagne, or the ones filled with lilies and statues of freshly sheared ewes. If you did want to drink, single malt scotch was poured straight from the barrel, and was expected to be the only liquid past your lips. Even implying that you wanted something else would get you laughed out on your ass. Don’t even get me started on the dinner menu.

It was a great place to visit, don’t get me wrong, but they didn’t have espresso, so we wouldn’t ever truly see eye to eye.

My mind snapped back to the present as the tone in the ewe’s voice changed. She was asking me if I was “Willing to put my very life on the line to be the savior Zootopia needs, as Nathaniel Southeast once was for our ancient people, may his soul descend from on high again to cleanse this world!” Blah, blah, blah.

Zealots, man, nuttier than a fat gay squirrel taking a tour in the Fruit Market during acorn season, but at least they talk to themselves enough that you can stop listening for a half hour and not miss anything.

I wasn’t making the mistake of getting personally invested in this one, not like last time. Keep your hoof in, and your head out, and you’ll live to work again. That’s my motto. Course, this was the sort of payday that you could retire on, and my recent track record has been, well, on par with getting scrapie. I’ve always said best to duck out on a small pot you’ve won than be forced out by a desperation all-in, and I didn’t like the way this conversation was going.

I said yes, I didn’t want to, but the money was too good. Her exaltations rang through my safe house like she was cheering my name through a megaphone. I hung up on her halfway through an off-key rendition of “The Sheep will Rise Again.”

That’s the job, though, and you do what you have to. Snatching up a career politician wasn’t exactly something I’d call difficult. Going hoof to claw with an angry lion? Not exactly the same kind of stress, but not something I’d like to do again. Beating up ZPD’s finest in a snowy field? Up there, but not the worst. But drugging and dragging a defenseless wolf to further the delusions of some more genocidal fanatics? Please, I could do it with both arms stuffed into my wool.

That was the problem, it was too easy. There’s always nettles in the heath, but you’ll be fine if you find them with your eyes before you find them with your mouth. Look for the catch, and then plan around it. The target and I had a past, and the customer was banking on that to blind me, but from what? Or were they really that dumb to think that I’d want revenge? Maybe they expected me to stick her in the ribs when no one was looking so they wouldn’t have to pay for a hit? No, these mammals wanted devotion, they figured someone who already had wool in the game wouldn’t cut and run. Well, I’d gotten burned last time, and I’d learned the hard way that she had friends on all sides of the law.

This time things would be different. Get a crew, a good crew, of my own choosing. Be in and out, cover every angle, but do it fast, before it could leak. My work desk was spotless, just as I liked it, but within hours it was full of printed files, blue prints, post it notes, and pictures of my target. The world had aired out her dirty laundry last year, and her personal life was on display like it was stapled to every telephone pole from the Muddy Swamp to the Polar Strait. A deeper scrape of the rumor and conspiracy boards turned up mostly useless shlock, but there was some glimmer of truths to be found there.

As for the mark’s career, well... Canidae lost the mayor-ship to Swinton by a hedgehog’s quill, and she’s been getting stomped down every time she started rising ever since. Who knew politics could be so petty and vindictive? Hundreds of failed referendums had her name on them: everything from a new holiday to celebrate the end of the nighthowler crisis, to an entirely reworked budget that prioritized education and low-income families. She’d thrown everything she possibly could into the paddock and not one turned up cotton.

Guess wolfy here finally got on someone’s nerves enough to need another a little vacation from work. A vacation that started with taking her afraid, alone, and pleading for her life. I’m not a friendly guy myself, but it didn’t get me hard either. That’s the world for ya; can never tell who watches the real rape tapes in their free time, or who makes ‘em.

I was rolling my shoulders and sifting through my contacts when my second burner phone rang. That meant it was city hall, and office of, oh, that’s the mayor’s office. Voice on the other end spoke shrilly, like a pig in heat trying to convince a pred that she was too young for all of this adult stuff. It was Swinton doing a terrible job of covering her voice. She had a lot of sizeable talents available to her, but acting was not one of them.

She had a job for me too, said she found the number in an old ledger, and recognized my name from the police reports. She wasn’t smart enough for this to be a set-up, so that’s probably what actually happened. Thanks, Bellwether, now I have to get a new number for my government business. I almost laughed when she said she wanted me to put a bullet in the back of Canidae’s head. This wolf must have shut down an entire voodoo district to roll the bones this bad to wind up in my scope for a second time tonight.

“So, make her suffer, and do it slowly, got it. How much we talking here?” Swinton promised me a chunk of the taxpayer’s money that would have made any other assassin wet himself. Too bad I already had five million on the line, so her paltry fifty thousand slid off me like water on oiled wool.

“Up close and personal isn’t my style, but if you’re good for the money…” The pig was, or at least she better be. Hell, money and shots was what she was best at. “We’ll see what happens. Check first, I’ll cash it if I do it.” She hung up on me without another word. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

 

**Friday**

Canidae was working late, again. The bad habit was doing wonders for her career, but it was murder on her back. The referendum she had in front of her was simply elegant. Even a buffoon could see how increasing the parks budget would benefit not only low-income families, but also the parts of Sahara Square that weren’t casinos. Unfortunately, the animals of Zootopia had elected such a buffoon, and once again Swinton had kicked her in the face with a coy, “Our city simply cannot afford the expenditure at this time.” Like heck they couldn’t.

Her office was set in an oft forgotten corner of city hall, with a big window overlooking a walking path that circled the building. Two of her walls were covered with bookshelves that were themselves covered in law case studies. The collection always smelled slightly moldy, no matter how many times the staff had cleaned them. To try and waft it out, Canidae had the window open all the time it wasn’t raining. If this had been her home office, a pleasant fake sun-light would be poised above her desk, but it was her work office, so a sad, little fan rotated slowly in opposite direction to its tiny blades, as they failed to drive away the autumn night’s heat. The rocking motion succeeded in only causing the shadows of the room to wobble back and forth, and bathe the tired wolf in sickly green light.

To her left was an old chair she kept around if she ever did get more than one visitor. To her right was a foot tall statue dedicated to the city’s founding done in brass on a pedestal. The piece was called _The Meeting at the Oasis_ , and it told the story of how pred and prey animals made peace so that both could drink at the titular spring without danger. That pact eventually lead to the concord which founded Zootopia. It was almost cliché to have it here, but the comfort of knowing that it had happened before made all this red tape seem worth it, like she could make it happen again.

In front of her was her desk, strewn with the papers she had been working on for hours now. Beyond that sat the most comfortable chair a buck fifty and a dive through a dumpster could get’cha. Her own was a terrible old thing that came with the position, and squealed like a cat getting her tail trapped in a laundry roller.

The tree outside the window scratched at the pane, sending an eerie high pitched squeal through the room with each gust of wind. She breathed the agitation out hard as she pulled up her email. She was already at an impasse with the hundred or so bills she’d thrown at the mayor’s office, might as well see if she can convince the bloody gardeners to trim some branches.

She wanted to scream, to tear out her hair, to chuck the folder out the window, to grab the statue of the city’s founding and bash it into the face of that smug, fat, sleazy- Calm, Canidae, calm down. You are now calm. Okay, back to work. She stared at the blank email for a minute before remembering why she had opened it.

She couldn’t work under these conditions, not with her sore feet, and drooping eyes, and a mind that was so shot from typing in legalese all day that she couldn’t even form the words to ask a bunch of day laborers to cut some twigs. She propped her head up with her arms, and let her eyes close. It would just be for a second, she couldn’t afford to waste time sleeping.

_Clonk._

The sound of metal on brick startled Canidae out of her rest. She pulled her face out of the puddle of saliva it had mysteriously found its way into. No reason to worry about that right now though, as that clearly wasn’t her doing. The spit faeries had paid her a visit, yeah, that was it. Just mischievous sprites, putting her head in a puddle of water and sticking these papers to her face, the scamps. The heavy thud came from outside again, and she toddled over to the window, gingerly peeling the first six pages of the referendum from her snout as she went.

There was no one outside, and no indication anyone had been recently. “Nerves,” she muttered. That’s just what it was. Stress of the job, and a light dinner. Canidae could never think properly when she was hungry. Something sugary would do at this time of night, possibly with some sweet lemon tea to wake her up.

The employee lounge/kitchenette of city hall was a short walk from her office, and the vending machine was well stocked for her needs. Normally she would go for one of the individually sized jars of peanut butter, chunky of course, and eat it with her claws, leaving the celery sticks that came with the jar in the fridge for some other animal. Today, though, a particularly bulging swirl cake had caught her eye. A picture of a smiling dingo on the package proudly described the food as “A Fukken True Blue Bonza Legend, Cunt!” Whatever the heck that meant.

She was willing to try most things, especially if it had a high sugar content, and it was only a dollar... She wolfed it down as soon as it dropped, tearing the package to ribbons to get at the treat. The frosting and cake danced together on her palette, bringing a smile to her face, and putting the spring back in her step. She bought the rest in the machine, a disappointing half dozen, and tucked them into her suit for transport back to her office.

When she returned, her window was closed. She stowed her prizes in her desk for later, and reopened it. The damn thing swung back closed on its own. “Stupid, stupid,” she muttered, plopping herself back down to write another work order. She had barely gotten any work done today, and it was infuriating.

 _It was always something with this building,_ she thought, _the heat didn’t work in the winter, or the AC cut out during the summer, and the floor was always wet by the boiler room, and the damnable cleaners never, ever did their job! Breathe, Canidae. You are a tranquil lake, you are a quiet night. You are a hungry wolf and there are six more swirl cakes in your desk, plus a bottle of cognac, stay strong_.

She tapped on her mouse, bringing the computer back to life. Her previous work order was still there, empty forms filling her with guilty anger. Too much to do, not enough time to do it. Always too much to do and not enough time to do it.

Her computer turned off with a bweoo as the light above her died, and the fan came to a sudden halt.

“Nooo,” Canidae moaned as she sunk into her chair. It must have been a blackout. City hall had generators, but they only ran power to high priority rooms. She rolled her head back and stared out the window, sniffling at her situation. Then she sat back up, and rushed to the window.

“Are you kidding me?” she asked the world, more accusation than question. The street lamp was on. The tiny lights that followed the foot path below were glowing dimly. She stuck her head out the window, leaning far enough to see that both the entire bottom floor, and the entire top floor were still lit. In fact, it looked like only her corner of the second floor was out. She flounced back into her seat. A scowl firmly on her face. This had to be Swinton’s fault. She didn’t know how yet, but she’d find out, and ooooh, there would be such a reckoning when she did.

“Councilwoman Canidae?” she jumped as a voice spoke out of the darkness.

“Y-yes?” she replied. What was someone doing here? The public visiting hours had ended at 5:00, it was almost 11:00 now.

“You know, you looked better with pink hair.” The voice was male, monotone, and almost slightly offended, like she was somehow wasting his time by not having dyed her hair in months.

“Wha-“

“Stop talking.” As Canidae’s eyes adjusted to what little light there was, she could see the outline of another animal in the room. Big, round, almost as tall as her, but most importantly, approaching. She backed away, straight into the open window. Her butt hit the sill, sending her almost toppling out. She grabbed at the wood, stopping herself from the fall by only two claws, her longest on each paw.

The other animal stopped approaching. He still wasn’t close enough to reveal any details, but his arm extended, far enough into the light that she could see the blackened gun in his hoof.

“Step away from the window,” he commanded.

Canidae’s brain stopped working, overloaded with flashes of memories as everything from those terrible campaign came back to her. Snippets of half remembered safety lectures fought with images of a large hyena to be at the forefront of her mind. But both lost to the memory of the beast they called The Artist, a hulking sheep psychopath in regal cloak, and what he had promised to do to her.

“I said, step away from the window.”

“A-are you here to kill me?” she managed. Her mouth was bone dry.

“Maybe, maybe not, depends on if you do what I say.” The gun moved out of the light for a moment as the sheep circled around, getting behind her. Canidae didn’t have a choice, so she took a faltering step from the window. She collapsed onto her paws and knees as her legs gave out from under her. A hoof tapped her forward, and she crawled the rest of the way to her desk.

“Sit down, and be quiet,” he said.

She pushed herself up far enough to fall into the chair, the metal groaning out in pain as she practically tipped over in it.

“I said be quiet,” he repeated. He was behind her now, doing something at the window. She wanted to lean over, to turn her head, to at least look the villain in the eye this time. Her chair practically shrieked as she shuffled a degree around, and that ended that plan.

 _But maybe that’s what we want?_ Asked a tiny voice in her head. _Make some noise, get some attention, you’re not alone this time._

The security guards, but they would be patrolling on different floors right now. City hall was lousy with vents though, and any noise this late must carry.

She turned towards the man, her chair sounding out a cruel symphony of ball bearings under too much tension for too long a time. It was the sweetest noise she’d ever heard.

“You’re going to get yourself hurt,” a hoof grabbed the chair and turned it forward again.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked. _Keep ‘em talking,_ a snippet of advice from long ago, _More they talk, less they do._

“No questions,” he replied, his voice almost directly behind her.

“Who sent you?”

“I said,” a hoof reached around her and grabbed her left arm. He suddenly jerked it back, sending a hot sear of pain into her shoulder. Turning her head brought only more of the burning sensation as her muscles stretched, but a steadily increasing pressure on her arm could mean nothing good. Then the man pulled her wrist back with a steady, yet implacable, force. The pain soared as the bone snapped. “No questions,” he finished.

Canidae almost screamed out, but the white-out pain was too intense. She couldn’t even pull enough of a ragged breath in to push out even a low moan. Her arm now swung uselessly by her side, each tap of the limb against the chair sent an intense screeching into her mind, blocking out any other thoughts.

She couldn’t see anything in the dark anymore, but then the lights blessedly flicked back on. She gingerly stole a peak at where her arm had been snapped like a twig. No blood stain, but even looking at her paw hanging at a right angle from the rest of her arm made her queasy.

“Oh, horseflies,” muttered the sheep.

 _If the lights were on, then the guards must be on this level, coming to find me!_ She thought. There was light at the end of this tunnel, she just had to survive until it got here.

“Hmmm, not quite enough rope,” he muttered, “Wait, that’s it. Here,” a metal three pronged hook appeared to her right. It was massive, nearly two feet long, with each spike ending in a wicked cut back, like a fishing hook. It was big enough to catch a whale. “Hold this will you?”

She didn’t even have time to reach up for the grappling hook as the sheep pulled the spikes back, sending one right through her shoulder. He pulled straight through cloth, fur, muscle, and bone in a single movement like it was tissue paper. He only stopped forcing it through her when it was firmly imbedded in the back of her chair.

This time Canidae did call out, her shriek of anguish echoing down the hall. If her arm hadn’t recently been snapped in half, this would have been the worst pain she’d ever felt. It was like a bite from a rabid mammal, burning and freezing in turn as every nerve in her shoulder screamed. Every twitch of her body sent wave after wave of torture through her. She wanted to faint, to just disappear from this situation, but she couldn’t, each stab of fear and danger keeping her awake.

At the end of the corridor, an elephant appeared, dressed in the bright blue of the ZPD. It was Justin, one of the security guards, and he was running towards her.

“Ugh,” the sheep behind her sighed, “there’s always something.” The crack of his gun blinded and deafened Canidae, and he rushed forwards, spinning her chair as he went. The whip of her broken arm hitting the seat, and the pull at her punctured shoulder made the world go black for much longer than the muzzle flash accounted for. It was all she could do to keep breathing.

 _Don’t pass out_! Andrea had told her, _no matter what happens, you have to keep awake. They could slip up at any time, and you just have to get away, or find someplace to hide. I’ll be there to find you._ That’s right. He had ran off, and the guards were here.

If only Andrea was here. She was a rock you could tie yourself to in a storm, a beacon of safety in a crueler world. Canidae would have given anything for the hyena to still be in her employ.

She forced her eyes open. She was facing towards the window, the night sky a blank chalkboard, none of the stars bright enough to be seen in the heart of the city. Her left arm was useless, but her right still worked. Maybe she could pull out the hook, find someplace to hide, just until the guards caught him.

It took all of her concentration to bring her paw to the hook, and then try and find purchase as her claws slipped off the metal. It was slick with red fluid that she only now realized was her blood. It was a lot too. Her paws were almost unusable from sweat, but she’d have to do it. She gritted her teeth, summoned what courage she had left, and pulled.

Her shoulder exploded in a flurry of cold stabs of pain, sending her vision black again. She choked for breath. Had he pierced her lung? Was she coughing up blood, or were the dots covering her desk from her shoulder? The hook hadn’t even budged.

This was it then. She was going to get kitnapped again by a sheep, and there was no Andrea to come and save her. In the distance, she heard the pop of her captor’s gun go off again. Two shots fired. Two security guards in the building. It was over. If he wasn’t coming back for her, she was going to bleed out right here. She was going to die in the office that she had fought so hard for, without a single life changed.

“Sorry about that,” it was his voice, that same monotone he had been using since he had first confirmed her identity. It had to have been hours ago. The clock on the wall read 11:02. It had been two minutes. “You really shouldn’t have screamed, I don’t think either of those men wanted to die tonight.”

She didn’t reply. What could she say?

“I’ll fix that though, you just wait right there while I get you something.”

It was her fault. This whole damn thing. If she hadn’t screamed, they would be alive. If she hadn’t accepted this pity position, someone else could have taken it, maybe done something useful with it. If she hadn’t run for mayor at all… If she could go back, she wouldn’t do any of it. She’d just marry Lucius, kick out a couple pups, drown herself in drink, and one day the tub.

The sheep’s hooves wrapped around her head, almost hugging her, as he revealed a brown net. A muzzle. He brought it to her face, letting the demure wolf slip into it of her own accord.

“See?” he whispered, “aren’t things so much easier when you don’t even try?”

He adjusted one of the straps near her mouth, slipping a hoof past her gums to ensure that it was tight. Without thinking, he touched her tongue, and she snapped at the hoof, drawing a trickle of blood and a curse from the sheep. The muzzle was forgotten as his other hoof slammed into her temple like a boulder, filling Canidae’s vision with stars.

“You stupid, stupid, half-breed!” He spun her around to face him, and he was a demon in her vision, all horns, and black wool, and a dancing flame deep in his sockets that spoke of just how helpless she was.

“This could have been so easy!” He yelled, hitting her again in the face, jerking her body against the hook. “You could have just cried like you did last time!” He hit her in the ribs, the pain of one cracking almost lost in the rest. “I should be up north in a nice paddock, drinking a grass smoothie right now!” He slammed his balled hooves again and again and again into her stomach.

The first hit had robbed her of air, the rest just served to sate his anger. He finally let up after an uncountable number of blows to her body. He walked behind her, and finished strapping on the muzzle.

His breath came heavy and full of muttered curses. Canidae sucked in air through her nose, her mouth now fully sealed. She had to fight against the strap on her neck, and every gasp was a struggle. Her diaphragm was barely working from the beating, and it felt like one of her lungs had collapsed.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, smoothing out her fur with an almost tender caress, loosening the strap around her neck. “I usually don’t get so involved in my work.” He ran his hoof along her head and neck, his hot breath causing her ear to twitch. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you like that, it won’t happen again.” He stopped, tapping on her jaw, each time with more force until his hoof stung like a whip. “But, the client did ask for suffering.”

The muzzle tightened around her neck and she suddenly couldn’t breathe at all. For a tense moment that felt like a millennia she desperately sucked at the leather sealing her lips. She tried to breathe through her nose, to get even a wisp of air, but none came as darkness crept into her vision. Her lungs were burning, and her head was reeling, and the world was growing long and narrow in front of her eyes. She shot her gaze around the room, searching for anything she had missed, anything she could use. It felt like she was looking at her office through a telescope from the other side of the city, the details swimming in and out of this once familiar place.

 _Bvvvvv. Bvvvvv. Bvvvvv._ Something was vibrating, but it could have been a freight train in Tundra Town for all it affected her life. The ram fumbled with his phone, then answered.

“This is Doug, what’s up? Yep, ahuh. Okay, switch to plan B and thanks for the call. Give me thirty more seconds and pull around. Got it. That’s why I hired you guys.” His voice was calm again, and the sudden shift made Canidae feel like she was floating. He hung up, and the last beep seemed to echo on into forever, as Canidae’s mind drifted down an endless dark incline into a warm pleasant coma.

Then, the tension was loosed, and the muzzle slipped off her face. She sucked in air, her vision returning all at once. Her ears were filled with the thump of her pounding heart. She coughed, spitting out blood between ragged gasps. Her arms still refused to move, or she would have grabbed at her throat as feeling returned as a dull ache where the bonds had bit into her.

The ram placed the gun’s still hot barrel gently against her temple, then he shifted it back a tiny amount. He twitched the gun around, taking differences in millimeters, searching for the perfect spot.

“It’s not your lucky day, councilwoman. Someone out there wanted to make this easy, someone else wanted to make it hard.” He clicked the hammer back for emphasis. “Guess who just won out? Goodbye Miss Canidae, no hard feelings.”

 _Bvvvvv. Bvvvvv. Bvvvvv._ “Oh lamb of god,” he swore. The gun disappeared from her peripheral, and Doug answered his phone, “What now? Yes, you guys just called me about- Both of them? Well that’s annoying. Just pull around then, I’m done here.” The gun didn’t reappear, but a hoof did, and it patted gently at her throat, massaging where her fur had been pressed down.

“Change of plans, it IS your lucky day, councilwoman. Now don’t say a word and nothing bad will- well, nothing else bad will happen to you.” With a sudden jerk, Doug tore the hook from her chair and back through her flesh, leaving a ragged wound that leaked blood like a faucet. Without it to support her, her limp body slid down. She twisted as her knees broke the fall, and she landed almost in slow motion, looking towards the window, and her assailant. She could finally see the creature that had made the last five minutes of her life a living hell: a medium sized ram silhouetted in the window, hornless, white wooled, and looking dead to rights like one of the terrible nightmares she had seen on ZNN during the mammalhunt. He was examining his hook, wiping the blood off with tissues from her desk with the care and precision one would take cleaning a pup’s face.

Her mind was blank, and her voice was almost gone. The croak she did finally produce was scratched, and barely audibly, “Why?” In the fluorescent light she could clearly see the eyes of her would-be kitnapper. They were the brown horizontal slits of a sheep, Hoofcraftian at the best of times, and now they cut her to the bone more than any look filled with hatred, disgust, or vile every could. They were as empty and emotionless as his voice, placid as brine pools, smoother than glass, not even paying her a lick of attention, even when she called out to him.

He gathered his supplies: a rope, the muzzle, and hook, and started putting them away in a duffle bag he slung over his shoulder. “Why?” Canidae asked again, no more confident or loud.

He kneeled down, wiping her snout with one of the blood stained tissues. He chucked the soiled paper into the wastebasket and shrugged. “I try not to get involved with my work, but you’re probably owed an explanation after tonight. You made some enemies.” He jammed the grappling hook into the window seal and threw the rope over the side before continuing. “You took down the two biggest organized threats to Zootopia without even meaning to, in one hell-filled campaign. You avoided my noose, even went claw to hoof with the Artist, and came out with your internal organs on the inside.” Her memories spiraled back to that terrible day when this had all happened before, and to that other ram, who would have broken her open like a crème brûlée. Those things he said she had done though, that had all been other animals. It had all been Andrea, and Hopps, and Wilde…

He leaned over, planting a light kiss on her forehead, before returning to the window. She looked up at him from the ground, his form made even larger by the angle. In this instance, those eyes should have burned like twin slits cut into oblivion. Now they almost looked mischievous, like a pup preparing to tell a joke. “Keep it,” he said, and chucked the muzzle at her. He dropped the rope over the ledge, then looked back at into the room one last time as he loped over and pivoted to climb down.

“Also their checks bounced,” he said, and rappelled back into the night.


End file.
